Coppertone Wars
by gillan
Summary: Haymitch/Maysilee. "The escort peels it open with painted fingernails and smiles intrepidly. 'Maysilee Donner.'" For Nami.


**Coppertone Wars**

For Nami [silver-nightstorm]— Valentine's Day!Exchange fic (:

prompts: _the hanging tree_, _haunted_, _if i had you_, and _the road to hell is paved with good intentions_.  
>pairing: HaymitchMaysilee

* * *

><p>They share the eminent Seam eyes— graphite gray, and eloquent.<p>

Maysilee splashes around and the bare, susceptible flesh of her soles are cyclically cut until they bleed. She blots away the blood with stained hands and shrugs placidly. Haymitch has never been more proud of their correlation.

He sprawls in the grass and scrutinizes her flaxen hair that splays arbitrarily against her pea sweater; he longs for pale hair like hers, just to have something else to call theirs.

Maysilee's sister has bread— of the finer variety from the bakery, scattered with fat yellow nuts —and they eat together, the warmth cupped in their palms and sluicing between their teeth.

Maysilee grins and Haymitch grins with her (and he's never not-hated anyone more).

. . .

Later that same day, they have their feet dipped in the pond. Maysilee begins to sing and the surface rattles with successive undulations.

"Stop," her sister rules shrilly, writhing with distress.

Maysilee breathes, "Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me," and Haymitch is abundantly aware that she isn't singing about trees now.

"Maysilee, I'm serious," her sister bleats, pulling her feet from the water. "I can't stand that song." Flushed, she scrapes away her long yellow bangs, peeling them from her forehead, richly perspiring.

Haymitch props himself up on his elbows. "What's it called, that song?"

Maysilee tells him, "_The Hanging Tree_," and shuts her eyes. "No stranger would it be, if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree," she croons.

"It's awful," Haymitch remarks emphatically, his heartbeat brisk underneath his pelt coat.

Maysilee snorts.

. . .

Haymitch cannot sleep that night.

He feels like his soul's been encroached, and that there are little fingers that worm around his throat and squeeze. He can't breathe, and the earth feels like it's gyrating too fast— _and then Haymitch goes tumbling_. He feels haunted, too; unreservedly troubled because Maysilee candidly scares him.

Haymitch really hates that song.

. . .

They're older now, ripened like fruit, and Haymitch hasn't spoken to Maysilee in years. He supposes it's fitting, because what would they talk about, anyway?

Haymitch keeps to himself at the school, but in spite of everything, he watches her. Maysilee gets a stupid boyfriend at some point, and Haymitch abhors his impenetrable hair and great sapphire eyes and hopes it doesn't last long.

Providentially, it doesn't, and Maysilee throws a robust fit after class and Haymitch— well, he can't help it —he guffaws.

. . .

He's reaped. Haymitch really isn't too sure how he feels about it, but his heart is icy, like it's anesthetized, and that's hardly an exceptional sensation.

Some other boy is chosen too— dark hair, thick brows, and a blaze of incontrovertible panic —before another creased square is pinched from the bowl.

The escort peels it open with painted fingernails and smiles intrepidly. "_Maysilee Donner_."

. . .

Their mentor is gray, and bland like a rice cake.

Haymitch hates him. He thinks Maysilee might too.

. . .

Haymitch can hear partially-curbed retches in the middle of the night. Instinctively, he bowls the coverlet off his legs and tears into the bathroom, chafing his eyes awake.

"Maysilee?" He pants in alarm. She's bent over the toilet, fingernails excavating the porcelain— and she's crying.

"Haymitch Abernathy." It isn't an inquiry, but a sloshing declaration. She suppresses a gag, hanging her head.

Gently, Haymitch whispers, "Are you scared? Is that why you're—"

Maysilee tells him _no, not about the Quell_…and then she mumbles something about 'the boyfriend' into her minute hands.

"The idiot with the big hair?" Haymitch inflects coolly. "He isn't your boyfriend anymore, Maysilee."

Maysilee chokes, mangling her lithe fingers. "I have nightmares."

"He was awful," Haymitch asserts crudely. "If I had you, I'd never have done it."

Maysilee fires a funny look his way, and daubs clean the discolored corners of her lips. "Good night, Haymitch."

. . .

Then the birds come.

. . .

Haymitch has won, but he doesn't care.

"I swear, I tried to save her." He sits with his mentor, a grimy drink fisted in one hand, while his other cups his sharp chin in aversion. Haymitch sinks in the cushion, moaning.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," the mentor offers benevolently, affectionately patting Haymitch on the head.

Haymitch thinks that may be the only excellent counsel his mentor has ever given. "Do you think I should try to forget her?" He sounds into his fingertips, listening to the quash of the rain outside.

"It's probably best."

But how can he?

He still dreams about those beaks her neck, and hell, he really liked her.

* * *

><p><strong>an**: _i hope it was ok. happy v-day!_

_-han_


End file.
